Investment bank has demonstrated that it's possible to make the switch from passive co-investor to leading deals of its own.

Last week, the Beijing-headquartered institution announced a final close of its on $600 million, according to a statement. It will sign cheques of up to $50 million for growth-stage companies in China's New Economy sectors.

The vehicle, which actually closed in Q1, is China Renaissance's first US-dollar-denominated fund that is solely intended to lead transactions, founder and chief executive Fan Bao told Private Equity International.

Its previous funds, including Huaxing Growth Capital USD Fund II, a $180 million 2015 vintage, had predominantly co-invested in "cherry-picked" sales processes run by its investment banking department, he said.

"In the past we invested the partners' capital into a lot of deals we do, so naturally, when we launched our first fund it was very much built on a co-investment strategy," Bao added. "Fund II was a little bit of a mixed strategy; there was the continuity of our co-investments but as well we started to lead some of the relatively early-stage deals on our own. After Fund III, we very much evolved into leading deals on our own and are very much focused on growth capital."

Fund III is accompanied by an RMB-denominated fund that closed on 6.5 billion yuan($953 million; €804 million) last year, Bao noted. US dollar capital was provided by European, Asian and Middle-Eastern institutions, while the yuan was committed by Chinese financial institutions, insurance companies and college endowments.